ST JOHN'S, CMC
IT'S NOW OFFICIAL - the Stanford Twenty20 competition - has been included on the annual calendar of the West Indies Cricket Board (WIBC).
Territorial board presidents had been slow to embrace the competition, organised by the Antigua-based, Texan billionaire Allan Stanford, unless it had been officially sanctioned by the WICB.
"The WICB has arrived at an agreement with Allen Stanford that the Twenty20 tournament will be staged under the aegis of the WICB," a news release from the WICB said.
The WICB revealed that the agreement was formalised by an aide memoire signed between WICB President Ken Gordon and Stanford on January 19.
"The regional governing body indicated that Stanford and his team of former West Indies players will retain autonomy for all aspects of running and organising the event," the news release added.
"The high-performance training programme for developing West Indies cricket will also be supported by the Stanford Group.
"This Caribbean-wide programme will be sponsored for one year by the group in the first instance, with an option to extend such sponsorship for the full four-year period of the development programme."
The Stanford Twenty20 competition is set to take place for five weeks from July-August this year at the Stanford Cricket Ground in Antigua, and the winner will take home US $1 million.
All countries that have been invited to participate have agreed to the terms. They are Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, the Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, The Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St. Kitts & Nevis, St. Lucia, St. Maarten, the British Virgin Islands, St. Vincent & the Grenadines, and Trinidad & Tobago.
Stanford is pumping close to US$28 million into the competition as follows: US $5.49 million for team preparations, US $2.75 million for marketing and promotion, US $6.015 million for operating costs, and US $13.9 million for the SuperStars event.
Do
you have a problem? Is something bothering
you? Write to 